


child.

by alexisntedgy



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Study, Domestic Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drunk Murdoc Niccals, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Noodle’s childhood, Phase One (Gorillaz), Russel Hobbs - Freeform, child abuse mentions, gorillaz character studies, russel is a dad, this is actually quite heavy I guess, trigger warnings in notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-01-13 22:48:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexisntedgy/pseuds/alexisntedgy
Summary: Noodle is just a child.Or, Noodle’s relationships with each of her now-family examined in regards to her less-than-normal and fairly traumatising childhood. Trigger warnings in notes.





	1. White Light (Murdoc)

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings:  
Mentions of abuse, domestic violence, implied childhood abuse, I,plied trauma, implied domestic violence, swearing, smoking, drinking (it’s Murdoc, duh) 
> 
> Stay safe lovelies 💕💕

Murdoc Niccals is not, and can never be, a father. 

He knows that. The very word “Father” instills such an overwhelming sense of fear and dread in the man that he barely ever spits the word out in casual conversation. “Dad” or any casual words like it were never spoken. Because Murdoc Niccals can not be a father.

So when she said it, it was no wonder he broke down. 

It was such a simple statement. He’d been putting Noodle to bed, ruffling her hair slightly begrudgingly. She smiled a huge smile at him for some bizarre reason, and he gave her the closest thing he could to a genuine smile. He walked towards the door with a tiny wave. 

“Nigh’ nigh’, dada”, the tiny ten year old spoke in her broken English. 

He stopped. 

He kept walking towards the door. His footsteps became slightly faster and he stepped out of her room, walking with heavy footsteps down the corridor as his mind filled with panic. 

Because he isn’t a father. 

He is a monster, the result of a childhood so dreadful he repeated his father’s actions on other people to make himself feel better. And as much as he likes to pretend he is, he’s no better than his father. 

And he is not her father. 

Because she can’t, she won’t end up like him. 

She’s so bright and bubbly and full of excitement about the world. She still had a spark that had long been snuffed out by the time he was her age. And he didn’t want to be the one to do that for her, although he knew he probably would be. 

Noodle was not growing up in a safe household. He always made attempts to rationalise it. She’s almost eleven, she’ll be fine. She’s independent. 

But she isn’t, not really. She still relies on them for basic care. She is still a child, innocent and blissfully unaware of her past and her future, whatever they may be. 

Murdoc turned the corner and went onto the balcony, fishing around in his jacket pocket for a cigarette and a lighter. “Fuckin’ hell”, he muttered as he took them out and lit the cigarette, pretending his swearing wasn’t a cover up for the words in his brain. His father’s words of course. Ones that she was now hearing from him.

She was playing with the Gorillaz action figures just the other day. She held a blue-haired 2D figure in one hand, and a Murdoc figure in the other. Murdoc had walked into the living room as he heard her shouting "Fuck you, Dullard!" with near-perfect English pronunciation. She was hitting the dolls together violently, before finally stopping with heavy breaths, and tossing the dolls into a corner. 

This was her normal. 

And it was his fault. 

The man stared down at the graveyard below, his cigarette dangling dangerously loose from his lips. He took it between two fingers and blew out some smoke, watching it swirl in the night air. 

He wasn’t as bad as Sebastian, right?

By the time Murdoc was ten, he had already experienced the full force of the horrors of the world. He blocks out all the childhood stuff through alcohol, and drugs, and sex, and by doing unspeakable things to other people. He’s evil, and nasty, and he knows that. 

But she doesn’t. She sees a tiny sliver of good in him, something that makes her think that he is worth the word "father" even gracing her lips. She’ll realise in time, the household she grew up in, that it wasn’t normal. And maybe she’d push him away. Wherever. He doesn’t care at all. She’s just his guitarist, she could easily be replaced. 

The cigarette finally falls out of Murdoc’s lips and over the balcony, tumbling down until it hits a pile of trash by the graveyard below. He took a step back and turned to the door, beer bottle in hand. He was going to find some porno to watch or something and just pretend nothing exists. 

But it does, and he does, and she does as well. And one day, she will know it.


	2. 12D3 (2-D)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sees him as an older brother. He’s odd, quiet, he makes weird noises. But she loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Drug use, implied drug use, drug abuse, implied drug addiction, implied domestic violence, implied abuse. 
> 
> Stay safe lovelies 🥰💕💕

Three, two, one, and-

Stuart opened his fist and shoved the ten pills into his mouth. It was nothing, really, just something to take the edge off. He had a killer headache and the constant noise coming from the studio upstairs was not helping. 

The effects kicked in and the boy wiped his hand across his clammy face, his tummy feeling a little ill, his head all tingly. But it was normal. The usual Gorillaz household evening. Russel was making dinner for everybody as Murdoc practiced some stupid bass line in the studio. Noodle was probably there as well, playing along.

2D didn’t have the energy. It was so bloody difficult to work out what people meant. They all said things, and the things they said would make no sense to him, and then he’d reply in the best way he knew how to, and everyone in the room would look at him like he was mad. 

Or with sickening pity.

But half of the time he didn’t recognise that pity anyway. Stupid facial expressions. They made no sense to the man. 

He looked over his bedroom, empty pill bottles littered everywhere that he should really clean up. Like, right now. 

That thought was gone from his head as soon as it arrived, and he found himself wondering what he was going to do this evening anyway. 

He took a few more painkillers from the bottle next to him on his bed, and swallowed them dry. The ceiling twisted and turned in a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours as he stared up at it, trying to make sense of every mould pattern as it swirled across his vision. 

This was healthy. 

This was okay. 

This was okay. 

2D was awaken from his trance by a demanding knock at his door. He sat up straight, his head dizzy, his mouth dry and feet heavy as he made his way to answer the door. He peaked his head out and it took a moment for him to register that little Noodle was standing in front of him, holding a badly-drawn image that his already terrible, drug-damaged vision couldn’t make out. 

He smiled at the girl, who waltzed into his room, a skip in her step. "Ah, now. 2-D. I draw picture." She said, handing 2D the paper with a determined hand held out in front of her. 2D started at the paper in front of him as he swayed, the world in so many colours he couldn’t count them. 

"You take it?" She said, looking up at the 6ft man, with his blue hair and dazed expression. 

"O-of course, Noods. It-it’s jus’ not a great time, tha’s all-" 

"But I draw picture." She said defiantly. 

2D took the picture from her hand and held it in front of him, allowing his vision to focus and form a cohesive summary of what he was seeing. 

The picture was of 2D himself, clearly. The blue hair, the black eyes, the stick-figure frame. It was obviously him. 

But next to him was what looked like a table, with tiny dots on top, some drawn so hard the pencil had stabbed through the paper. And behind him stood a shadowy figure, aka a slightly rubbed-out pencil drawing of someone.  
"Wha-what’s, uh, what’s going on ‘ere, Noods? In this picture?" He said with genuine confusion, a little perplexed by the child’s drawing. Of course, he wasn’t good at understanding much, full stop. This world wasn’t made for people like him to understand, he’d known that for a long time. But a kid’s drawing? He should be able to decipher that. 

"That you." She pointed at 2D. Then she moved her tiny finger to the table beside him. "Table. Your special medicines...your tablets. You are taking them...to feel better." She smiled at the boy, who moved his head to focus on her and smiled back. Something in him wanted to cry. 

Why did he want to cry?

The girl moved her finger to the figure behind him. "That’s Murdoc." She stuck her tongue out a little. "He’s coming to give-uh- give you...a-what’s that called?" 

She didn’t give 2D even a second to think about his answer before she answered her own question. "A beatin. Punch, scratch. You were bad."

2D’s eyes filled with tiny tears that somehow felt dry. "And what did I do, then, Noods?"

"Why is he goin’ ta’ beat me?"

She tilted her head, scratched her chin, and wrapped her arms around 2D’s waist. 

"I don’t know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the angstiest thing i have ever written probably!!!! I didnt know i has the power within me to do it 🤧🤧


	3. Let Me Out (Russel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Russel worries for Noodle’s future, sometimes a little too much, but sometimes he’s reminded just how much she loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DADRUSSELDADRUSSELDADRUSSEL
> 
> Bc Russel is SUCH A DAD

Many people seem to consider Russel as the most “ordinary” member of Gorillaz. The most stable. The most normal. The one who could hold himself together. The one who held the rest of them together when everything around them was falling to pieces. 

But they didn’t see it. The interviewers, the media, the fans, even his own band mates sometimes forgot about it. Because Russel wasn’t really all that important, in his own eyes. Sure, he has the combined power of several rapping spiritual entities, and he’s pretty alright at drumming, if he does say so himself. 

But the real reason he holds himself, and them, together so well is for her. It’ll always be for her. Her safety and her stability. 

Russel often got tired of trying to hold Noodle’s childhood together for her. It was already lost at this point, and she’d realise that soon enough. Maybe she already had, maybe she was aware that her childhood had been ruined by war and abuse, stolen by men looking for money and glory. Maybe she stayed up at night in the same way Russel did, watching the clock tick by as the morning drew closer.

He wasn’t stable. He had ghosts in his brain that were pushing his sanity to it’s breaking point, and he would see things that weren’t there in the corner of his room at night, he would hear soft whispers from dead people telling him things no mortal man should know. 

But he’s all she has to cling to, and he wants so badly to be the one she remembers in the future as “the one who was okay.” 

She loved 2-D so much, but he wasn’t the same kind of figure to her as Russel. Russel spent so much of his time caring for 2-D as well if he’s honest, who is barely just an adult himself. Russel was never sure what Stuart’s actual diagnosed intellectual disability was, his parents were always very vague about it, and after the brain damage 2D needed a lot of help for a lot of things, which was okay. Russel gets why he needs help, even if he is extremely irritating at times. He was effectively responsible for the lives of three people right now, himself included. 

Ghosts not included, he supposes. 

It was two in the morning when he sat up in bed with a jolt, sweat running down his face. He looked frantically around the room, watching as spirits and creatures retrieved back into his drawers, cupboards, anywhere in his room. It happened all the time, the nightmares. But they were more than just nightmares, since nightmares don’t affect your real life, usually, at least. 

He listened to his room creak and groan, the ghosts talking in soft whispers that were almost comforting at that point. The voices would sing him to sleep, and make his heart-rate slow, his breathing calm as he looked around his messy bedroom, covered in crumbs and clothes and things he really needs to clean up. 

He usually managed to fall back to sleep after a nightmare, Del whispering something in his mind, soft and barely there but calming and quiet. Russel loved sleeping, perhaps it was a part of who he was at this point. Noodle seemed to find his tiredness incredibly funny. They all did, actually. 

After ten minutes of restless tossing and turning, the drummer sighed and groaned as he turned one last time, throwing huis legs over the side of his bed and sitting up. He turned to his lamp and switched it on, letting his eyes adjust to the light. The clock next to his bed told him it was now 2:25am. 

Russel walked as quietly as he possibly could towards his door, although his heavy feet still hit the ground with a dampened crash. He walked through the hallway and to the elevator. 

Kong studios was terrifying at night, but still strangely warm and comforting, in a way. At least for Russ, it was. 

He headed for the living room as the elevator creaked to a very loud halt, and took a seat on the couch, switching the TV to some late-night infomercial channel. The drummer pulled a blanket over himself and sighed quietly. 

Every couple of months he would lie out here, letting the white noise of the infomercial lady trying to sell him something rock him to sleep. Sometimes, he wouldn’t be alone, spiritually or literally. Oftentimes Murdoc was still awake at this time of night, extremely drunk and watching some stupid film on the telly. Russel would sit in silence and try to block out his rambling, in the hopes of getting some much-needed sleep. 

This time, though, it seemed Murdoc had decided to stay in his Winnebago. 

Russel was almost asleep, the soft blanket wrap opted around him, his head on a less-than-clean couch pillow, when he heard very soft footsteps walking quietly down the hallway. He sighed, expecting to see some demonic entity or ghost walking towards him. It wouldn’t be the fist time something like that had happened, if he was honest. 

But when he looked up, there was no see-through ghostly figure, or a glowing entity. Just the tiny silhouette of a little girl, her thumb in her mouth. Russel gave a soft sigh. “Hey, Noodle.” He smiled at her. 

She took a few steps forwards and sat on the couch next to him, moving his heavy legs with all her might. She was really strong for her size and age, and Russel often wondered why. It was a little concerning if he was honest, this little ten-year-old wit such strength and skill at so many forms of fighting. No child her age should know how to fight like she does. 

Noodle looked up and smiled at Russel with her signature head-turn and shiny teeth. Russel smiled and ruffled her hair. “What are you doin’ up at this time o’ da night, Noods?” He asked as she smiled up at him. 

“Uh... Loud noise. Outside my window.” The tiny Japanese girl responded, making motions with her hands in an attempt to communicate what she meant. Russel nodded. “Ah. I’m in a bit of a similar situation myself, I’ve gotta say. Noisy ghosts, ya know?” 

Noodle nodded her head solemnly. 

Silence filled the room for a few seconds, only broken by the noise of the informercial lady who was still nattering on about something neither of them cared about at all. Noodle suddenly moved closer to Russel and buried her head in his neck, closing her eyes and sighing softly. Russel froze. Noodle was not an exceptionally cuddly child, she was much bouncier and always on the move. This was a rare occurrence. Sure, Noodle would never say no to a piggyback or being thrown into the air by Murdoc, but snuggling like this? It hardly ever happened, not for Russel, at least. 

He quickly relaxed, not wanting Noodle to think he was uncomfortable, and she shifted her head to his chest. He smiled. 

He might not always be stable, or entirely sane, but Russel was Noodle’s rock, the one person she knew would never leave, or change. 

Oh, and Russel is also really, really good at cuddles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm thats kinda sweet innit

**Author's Note:**

> Ooooof I have a few ideas about where gonna take this, next chapter will probably focus on Russel. 💕


End file.
